Changes in Income Position and On-set of Depressive Symptom among Adults in South Korea

Abstract

The relationship between income and health is rather complicated because of income dynamics over time. To properly reflect income status changes, we examine the association of flows into and out of low income status with on-set of depressive symptoms among working-age people(n=3,543). Using data from the 1st -9th waves of the Korean Welfare Panel Study and timelagged discrete time hazard models, the results show that working-age people falling into low income or staying in persistent economic hardships, compared to those staying in middle-toupper income, have higher risk of developing depressive symptoms at following year.Interestingly, resolving economic hardship has negative effects on depressive symptom, but its effect is no longer significant after considering socio-demographic factors, especially working status. Overall, our result indicates that people who fall into low income have a hard time to recover their original position since they face both deteriorated economic deficits and psychological distress.